The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

Home > Fiction > The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works > Page 80
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 80

by William Shakespeare


  35

  The folded meaning of your words’ deceit.

  Against my soul’s pure truth, why labour you

  To make it wander in an unknown field?

  Are you a god? would you create me new?

  Transform me then, and to your power I’ll yield.

  40

  But if that I am I, then well I know

  Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,

  Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;

  Far more, far more to you do I decline;

  O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note

  45

  To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears;

  Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;

  Spread o’er the silver waves thy golden hairs,

  And as a bed I’ll take thee, and there lie,

  And in that glorious supposition think

  50

  He gains by death that hath such means to die;

  Let love, being light, be drowned if she sink.

  LUCIANA What, are you mad that you do reason so?

  ANTIPHOLUS S.

  Not mad, but mated, how I do not know.

  LUCIANA It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

  55

  ANTIPHOLUS S.

  For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.

  LUCIANA

  Gaze where you should, and that will clear your

  sight.

  ANTIPHOLUS S.

  As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.

  LUCIANA Why call you me love? Call my sister so.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Thy sister’s sister.

  LUCIANA That’s my sister.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. No,

  60

  It is thyself, mine own self’s better part,

  Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,

  My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim,

  My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.

  LUCIANA All this my sister is, or else should be.

  65

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee;

  Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;

  Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife –

  Give me thy hand.

  LUCIANA O, soft, sir, hold you still;

  I’ll fetch my sister to get her good will. Exit.

  70

  Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Why, how now Dromio, where run’st

  thou so fast?

  DROMIO S. Do you know me sir? Am I Dromio? Am I

  your man? Am I myself?

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man,

  75

  thou art thyself.

  DROMIO S. I am an ass, I am a woman’s man, and besides

  myself.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. What woman’s man? and how besides

  thyself?

  80

  DROMIO S. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a

  woman, one that claims me, one that haunts me, one

  that will have me.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. What claim lays she to thee?

  DROMIO S. Marry sir, such claim as you would lay to

  85

  your horse; and she would have me as a beast, not that

  I being a beast she would have me, but that she being

  a very beastly creature lays claim to me.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. What is she?

  DROMIO S. A very reverend body; ay, such a one as a

  90

  man may not speak of, without he say ‘sir-reverence’;

  I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a

  wondrous fat marriage.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. How dost thou mean, a fat marriage?

  DROMIO S. Marry, sir, she’s the kitchen wench, and all

  95

  grease, and I know not what use to put her to but to

  make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light.

  I warrant her rags and the tallow in them will burn a

  Poland winter; if she lives till doomsday she’ll burn a

  week longer than the whole world.

  100

  ANTIPHOLUS S. What complexion is she of?

  DROMIO S. Swart like my shoe, but her face nothing like

  so clean kept; for why? she sweats, a man may go over-

  shoes in the grime of it.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. That’s a fault that water will mend.

  105

  DROMIO S. No sir, ’tis in grain; Noah’s flood could not

  do it.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. What’s her name?

  DROMIO S. Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters,

  that’s an ell and threequarters, will not measure her

  110

  from hip to hip.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Then she bears some breadth?

  DROMIO S. No longer from head to foot than from hip

  to hip; she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out

  countries in her.

  115

  ANTIPHOLUS S. In what part of her body stands Ireland?

  DROMIO S. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by

  the bogs.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Where Scotland?

  DROMIO S. I found it by the barrenness, hard in the

  120

  palm of the hand.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Where France?

  DROMIO S. In her forehead, armed and reverted, making

  war against her heir.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Where England?

  125

  DROMIO S. I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find

  no whiteness in them. But I guess it stood in her chin,

  by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Where Spain?

  DROMIO S. Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her

  130

  breath.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Where America, the Indies?

  DROMIO S. O, sir, upon her nose, all o’er-embellished

  with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich

  aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent whole

  135

  armadoes of carracks to be ballast at her nose.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?

  DROMIO S. O, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this

  drudge or diviner laid claim to me, called me Dromio,

  swore I was assured to her, told me what privy marks

  140

  I had about me, as the mark of my shoulder, the mole

  in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I,

  amazed, ran from her as a witch.

  And I think if my breast had not been made of faith,

  and my heart of steel,

  She had transform’d me to a curtal dog, and made

  me turn i’th’ wheel.

  145

  ANTIPHOLUS S.

  Go, hie thee presently, post to the road;

  And if the wind blow any way from shore

  I will not harbour in this town to-night.

  If any bark put forth, come to the mart,

  Where I will walk till thou return to me;

  150

  If everyone knows us and we know none,

  ’Tis time I think to trudge, pack and be gone.

  DROMIO S. As from a bear a man would run for life,

  So fly I from her that would be my wife. Exit.

  ANTIPHOLUS S.

  There’s none but witches do inhabit here,

  155

  And therefore ’tis high time that I were hence;

  She that doth call me husband, even my soul

  Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,

  Possess’d with such a gentle sovereign grace,

  Of such enchanting presence and discourse,

  160

  Hath almost made me traitor to myself;

  But lest myself be gu
ilty to self-wrong,

  I’ll stop mine ears against the mermaid’s song.

  Enter ANGELO with the chain.

  ANGELO Master Antipholus.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Ay, that’s my name.

  ANGELO I know it well, sir; lo, here’s the chain;

  165

  I thought to have ta’en you at the Porpentine,

  The chain unfinish’d made me stay thus long.

  ANTIPHOLUS S.

  What is your will that I shall do with this?

  ANGELO

  What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. Made it for me, sir? I bespoke it not.

  170

  ANGELO

  Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.

  Go home with it, and please your wife withal,

  And soon at supper-time I’ll visit you,

  And then receive my money for the chain.

  ANTIPHOLUS S. I pray you, sir, receive the money now,

  175

  For fear you ne’er see chain nor money more.

  ANGELO You are a merry man, sir; fare you well. Exit.

  ANTIPHOLUS S.

  What I should think of this I cannot tell;

  But this I think, there’s no man is so vain

  That would refuse so fair an offer’d chain.

  180

  I see a man here needs not live by shifts

  When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.

  I’ll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;

  If any ship put out, then straight, away. Exit.

  4.1 Enter Second Merchant, the goldsmith ANGELO and an Officer.

  2 MERCHANT

  You know since Pentecost the sum is due,

  And since I have not much importun’d you,

  Nor now I had not, but that I am bound

  To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage;

  Therefore make present satisfaction,

  5

  Or I’ll attach you by this officer.

  ANGELO Even just the sum that I do owe to you

  Is growing to me by Antipholus,

  And in the instant that I met with you

  He had of me a chain; at five o’clock

  10

  I shall receive the money for the same.

  Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,

  I will discharge my bond, and thank you too.

  Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS and DROMIO from the Courtesan’s.

  OFFICER

  That labour may you save; see where he comes.

  ANTIPHOLUS E.

  While I go to the goldsmith’s house, go thou

  15

  And buy a rope’s end; that will I bestow

  Among my wife and her confederates

  For locking me out of my doors by day –

  But soft, I see the goldsmith; get thee gone,

  Buy thou a rope and bring it home to me.

  20

  DROMIO E.

  I buy a thousand pound a year, I buy a rope! Exit.

  ANTIPHOLUS E.

  A man is well holp up that trusts to you;

  I promised your presence and the chain,

  But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.

  Belike you thought our love would last too long

  25

  If it were chain’d together, and therefore came not.

  ANGELO Saving your merry humour, here’s the note

  How much your chain weighs to the utmost carrat,

  The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,

  Which doth amount to three odd ducats more

  30

  Than I stand debted to this gentleman;

  I pray you see him presently discharg’d,

  For he is bound to sea and stays but for it.

  ANTIPHOLUS E.

  I am not furnish’d with the present money;

  Besides, I have some business in the town;

  35

  Good signior, take the stranger to my house,

  And with you take the chain, and bid my wife

  Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof;

  Perchance I will be there as soon as you.

  ANGELO Then you will bring the chain to her yourself.

  40

  ANTIPHOLUS E.

  No, bear it with you, lest I come not time enough.

  ANGELO Well sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?

  ANTIPHOLUS E.

  And if I have not, sir, I hope you have,

  Or else you may return without your money.

  ANGELO Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain;

  45

  Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,

  And I, to blame, have held him here too long.

  ANTIPHOLUS E.

  Good Lord! You use this dalliance to excuse

 

‹ Prev